Snow on the window
by fernomina
Summary: Five charactor bios after the last episode. Darker reflections and how their lives have changed.
1. Pepper

**A/N Hello! How are you? Welcome to my first Iron man fanfic, I hope you like it.**

Pepper Potts stared out of the window, her breath misting the glass slightly at the slowly falling snow that was blanketing the city. It was early morning on a Saturday, normally she would have still been sleeping away but the forecast of snow the previous night had ensured her early awakening. As a child she had loved the way that snow made everything new and exciting. Now she loved the snow because it covered the blood, graffiti and hate making it into something magical. It was hard to believe that she had spent almost a year in team Iron Man and all the things that she had seen.

She still acted like the regular old Pepper for the sake of her parents and friends but inside all she felt like the darkness, fear and hate she had seen when on team ironman slowing rotting away the innocence naivety she had had when she was regular old Pepper. She had had amazing experiences when she was fighting alongside Rhodey and Tony but it had come with the price. Shattering her unrealistic ideals that the good guys always won. Of course she had known that before from her father and through her many hours of hacking the FBI's database. Then it had seemed like fun and games but now everything had its own sick twist. All of it had slowly started to erode away the bubbly and foot in mouth personality that she had had before. Lately she had started to really think about what she was saying and she had recently realised that she was a lot darker. Iron man had started to really affect her in ways that the comics had never shown although she wouldn't give up the last year for anything in the world. But what she would give to forget what had happened in the cave. Pepper quickly gulped and suppressed the memory, concentrating on Iron Man.

Pepper felt a twang, it was hard to imagine her life before Iron Man. Now her life was devoted to the Red suited hero. Did she have a life before all of this, all of Tony? She had known Rhodey, but he had only been a passing figure no one monumental, no one special. Now he felt like one of her limbs, it was unimaginable trying to go through a day without either Tony or Rhodey. Their friendship had grown quickly and strongly, probably due to the circumstances. Before she had gotten to know Tony she had had a slight crush on him, it was totally understandable she now realised. He had been the definition of dark and mysterious stranger. It had helped that he was also good looking, smart and rich. Any other normal girl would have started to fling themselves at him, in actual fact they had, she reminded herself bitterly thinking of Whitney. Anyway, the small flame of like that had resided in her heart slowly flicked out while the somewhat cooler but surer fire of friendship consumed it.

And there was Gene. Her mind was wild before she could stop herself from thinking about what had happened. Gene had replaced Tony for a short time in her heart, she had initially hated the boy who had come between her and her friends but as she got to know him he had seemed like Pepper's other half. Serious and thoughtful, deliciously sarcastic and extremely profound. It was true that she liked as more than a friend and had tried to make several hints about their friendship progressing further and maybe it would have if the several immediate things hadn't stopped Pepper in her tracks. What had happened in the cave a couple of weeks ago still chilled her to her bone. It was stupid to pretend that nothing had happened in the cave with Gene and the dragon and the Mandarin. Pepper had already cried all her tears, let out all her sobs and had pummelled out all her anger into her pillow. What was left was simply a husk that was post-Gene. She had a favourite fantasy that she played through her mind when she fell into the black darkness of depression.

She would be in a green forest coated in snow, all fresh and new. Wondering around there would a small wooden hut and when she opened the door, Gene would be there. Still in his sunglasses, jeans and jacket, curiously not dressed for the weather. He would kiss her mouth and they would sit in front of the crackling fire, not talking, just enjoying each other's company. She had similar dreams where the wooden hut was metal and outside was Summer, instead of winter and it was painfully hot. The metal door of the hut burned but Gene was still inside, he would kiss her but it would be sour and when she resurfaced it would be the Mandarin. The grey mask was terrifying and he would be laughing, a terrible laugh of metal scraping against metal. Suddenly the world was on fire and as Pepper ran out of the hut she would look back to see the Mandarin stuck to the ground, the metal armour slowly melting. The next part was the part she always feared. The Mandarin would open his mouth to scream, but it was not the scream of metal but Gene's own scream.

It was too hard to think about it and the memory vanished. Pepper felt her hand brush away the invisible tears that had already been cried. It was hard sometimes to get out of bed but she still needed to convince her family and friends that she was still old Pepper.

Yawning Pepper un-pressed her nose from the window and got up from her bed, she wrapped herself with her thick nightgown and quietly padded to the kitchen. Her father would be up soon too so she flicked on the coffee maker it replied with a small whistling sound. It was far too cold for cereal so she set to work frying up some eggs and the remaining bacon that she remembered to buy. Pepper's parents were divorced. Her mother lived in England with her stepdad and sometimes visited during the holidays, she called every Sunday afternoon for a quick chat. The separation between her parents had been very messy although at the moment they were on cordial, if chilly terms. Pepper enjoyed living with her dad even though he was very busy; she had once visited her mother and stepfather in England but did not like it. Ok, she liked England just fine; it was her mother's new husband that she hated. He was a well built (Fat) man in his mid forties, who cooked and although it was extremely obvious that he was bald he insisted that he wear an ill fitting, horrible toupee that sat on his head like a small rodent. The first day that Pepper came to stay he had added a pound of pepper to the soup as a pun about her name and then filmed her embarrassing reaction. Her mother had tried to smooth things over by saying that he just had an eccentric humour. Pepper responded to the prank by sneaking into their room late in the night and super gluing the hairpiece to his head. Pepper still loved her mum although her crappy new partner choice and was a bit resentful towards her parents when they split up but overall it was better than before.

As a reconciliation present her mother had given her a new cell in the mail, it was new and shiny and very useful so Pepper took it as a peace offering. She loved her phone in the first few weeks, adding everyone she knew into her contacts and making a point to call people using her new phone over the landline. The novelty of getting a text message had worn off but recently Pepper had been receiving strange text messages from someone who had seemed to be watching her. Nothing scary, just enough to make her suspicious, things like "I like the shirt you're wearing" or "Well done on you Maths test." Just weird stuff like that, Pepper had her suspicions that Whitney was trying to get on her nerves but even that seemed unrealistic. She had replied to the private number, asking who it was but there was no definite reply. Lately the text messages had been erratic, arriving at strange times at night and having strange coding. Some of them were violent threats that Pepper gave hollow laughs at and others were apologies, mostly the most common were teasing texts. Asking if she had figured out who it was. Pepper dimissed the texts as a prank but it was starting to get on her nerves.

The bacon sizzled as she tossed it into the frying pan and the sounds of her father getting up in the other room. Her father was working on a particularly hard case, he had been chasing a criminal named Nettles who had been kidnapping the daughters and sons of the most influential people of the world. Iron man had been chasing the kidnapper many nights but had always lost them. It was frustrating thinking about the villain that was still on the loose. Her dad came to the kitchen and ruffled Pepper's head affectionately and munched on a piece of bacon that was just out of the frying pan. As she sat down next to her father she felt a small vibration and the start of her Neon hitch ring tone singing out of the pocket of her nightgown. As her hand slipped into the plush pocket, she flipped open the phone ignoring the groan of her father pointedly at the phone. She looked at the screen to see that there was a private number, assuming it was Tony calling from the armoury. Pepper smiled at him, pushing the plate of eggs and bacon towards him and mouthing that she was full, she slipped into her room. It was only after the door had shut was when she clicked the little green phone button. Holding it up to her ear she expected the serious tone of Tony instead she heard a voice she had only dreamed of.

"Hello Pepper. I hope you've gotten my text messages. I miss you, do you want to meet up?" Chills ran up and down her spine and as she dropped the phone onto the floor "Don't worry, _Patricia_, I'll find you." Although the phone lay face down Pepper could still hear Gene clearly. The next sound made her blood run cold and flood her aching head with memories, she heard the unmistakable laugh of Gene rattling through the phone's speakers, mocking Pepper. The call was cut off and the dial tone sounded ominously loud, it was only after a minute that she picked the phone up cautiously, as if it were to burn her. After stabbing the hang up tone she pulled up her knees into her chest and sobbed freely. Rocking back and forth on the floor of her bedroom as outside the snow started to fall softly against the window.

**A/N Neon hitch plug, (shes actually a really good singer, I recommend you search her on youtube) This chapter is the first part of five (or four, I haven't decided just yet) charactor bios, this won't really have too much of a plot line, well there will be but not too much, just the lives of the main charactors after the incident of the last episode. I haven't ****decided the order of the charactors just yet but I have started of Gene's bio...**

**Also! A question! I want to do five bios, I am already doing the four main charactors but I am stuck on thefifth. Tell me the extra charactor who you want me to write about. Like the extra charactors that don't make it into every episode (e.g. Happy, Whitney...)**

**Ok Thanks for reading! Please review to tell me if you like this or not.  
**


	2. Gene

**A/N Hello again, thank you for reading. Hmmm I hope you like this chapter. I think its ok but slightlyn OOC... But enough chatter, I hope you enjoy Gene's refletion.**

Gene kneeled on the cold floor of the temple, the cold of the tiles seeping into his ripped dirty pants, he shivered. His black tee shirt that had once come from an exclusive store was now too small and blood stained. His trademark tinted sun glasses were cracked but still were propped on his face, slightly lopsided. The rings around his neck swung slightly on the chain around his neck. He had all five now, he was hunting for the next five and had been living in a flat that the council were planning to knock down. He used to come to the temple when he needed to think or after his step father had hit him particularly hard it was his secret place of Refuge.

Outside of the temple a harsh snowfall was falling heavily in the early morning darkness, it had started snowing while Gene was still outside and his running footsteps he had left had already become invisible in the short time he had reached shelter. Gene hated snow. It was too white. Too pure and too… too.. Too good.

His forehead touching the floor as he bowed to the stone figure of the Buddha who was surrounded by burnt out red candles that sat in pools of crimson wax. Rotten offerings of food sat on the edge of the table were the statue sat. Small jade animals were broken some of them smashed, missing heads and ears laid at the statue's feet. The temple walls were large and stretched high, spray-painted with obscenities and false name of the "artists" who had desecrated the sacred place covering the walls etched with Chinese characters that told of the ancient Chinese Lore. Painting comical faces onto the large fierce dragons who still peered at Gene through their cold black eyes. Peeling red lacquered furniture adorned the temple various mismatched pieces knocked around. Bottles of alcohol in various amounts of emptiness were strewn; most of them were Gene's. The Buddha was the only thing untouched in the room, a light in the otherwise darkened room of destruction.

Thoughts swirled in his head as he dizzily recounted what had happened in the last month. It seemed almost a dream and he could only remember flashes of what had happened in the Fin Fang Foom. Glimpses of Pepper, Rhodey, Tony and that damn Iron Man. Images of the huge dragon red armor swirled around his head. He had lived in the cave of the dragon for a few days, studying the arrangement of the hologram map that betrayed the hiding places of the rings. He had somehow gotten a lift back to America but had not even tried to go to his old home knowing he could never be accepted by the Tong who had been my followers. The steady ache in his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten in- How long? The weeks after the cave were a blur of fights he had gotten into with the local gangs when they had found him scrounging around their neighborhood. After a particular bad one he had dragged himself, injured and bloody to an empty flat afterwards. It had been abandoned by previous squatters, it wasn't a home, just place of shelter. Once he had been the feared and merciless leader of the terrifying groups in the city. But as he was being punched and pummeled, kicked by mere wannabes with the same mercilessness he had dished to much bigger fish. The ironic karma filled him and as they left him in an empty and dark car park he laughed hard, making his chest cry with pain. He ended up spewing dark blood from his mouth onto the pavement and violently vomiting up the food he had stolen.

The rings now were only a weight around his neck that he could not use, swinging slightly while he stared at the floor of the temple. The early morning sunlight making the rings glitter slightly. He could not use the suit for too much time which was partly the reason he hadn't used it to defend himself. He had tried numerous times but had realized that with his failing health the fact that he was either in the state of getting drunk, drunk or with a hangover. He could not establish the suit for more than a few minutes and on especially bad days not at all. He had a scary experience when he had tried to put on the suit when he was drunk, with the idea that if he jumped off a bridge if he would gain the permanent silence and isolation he wished for. A complete separation from the world. When he was about to jump from the bridge into the rocky waters the suit began to feel thin. There was no other way to describe it, the suit simply started to fade away until Gene found himself in his ordinary clothes, panting hard and with the rings banging along with his pounding heart. It made him shiver now in the cold abandoned temple, the fear of the unknown slightly bigger than the fear of the death he had so closely encountered with.

Gene came to the temple to pray and to be at peace with himself and to think of a strategy of finding the next rings. He had stared at the hologram map for long enough but the continents were always distorted and it was obvious the rings would not be easy to find. Gene had to admit finding the first five rings were mainly thanks to Stark. Now that Stark knew that he was the Mandarin and, more importantly, Gene knew that Tony was Iron Man he had to find another person to help him find the rings. Just thinking about them made his head hurt. He had though that…that. That the five rings would be enough. Would be enough to bring his mother's life back. To make his life right but NO! There had to be another five rings. Another five tests and more wait for his life to return to normal. That was all he wanted, for his mother to come back, for a normal life and maybe even a girlfriend. Someone cute, that he shared a lot in common... someone like Pepper. When thoughts like these sneaked into Gene's head he normally washed them away with alcohol or went to spy on his "friends".

He had taken to watching his old life. Silently being the second shadow to his old friends. Friends, if that was what you could call them. Friends represented weaknesses he knew that from far before but at the beginning of the year he had needed them to work for him. It had almost been too easy to deceiving Stark into friendship, the Rhodes boy had been slightly harder to convince for trust but Gene had done it. Having friends was not as great as they said it was in books and on the TV but they were entertaining, running around, pretending to be heroes looking for the Makluan rings. The memory that Stark was actually Iron man and a real hero sobered the amusement for Gene but he still enjoyed watching his former friends around their ordinary lives. He had started looking at all three but gradually took to only paying attention to Pepper.

Pepper.

A wave of unwanted emotions swept Gene into thoughts that he wanted to shut away forever as he bent his head lower and shutting his eyes hard against the unwanted but not completely alien feelings and thoughts. The feelings he had for her were not the same artificial friendship that was inches away from contempt he had for Stark and Rhodes but a true caring and even… No. He didn't deserve those feelings for Pepper. She deserved better, she deserved anyone else even… even Stark.

But not him, never him.

The last few moments of their friendship when he had pushed her out of the way from the dragon were the seconds he himself he had admitted to himself that he loved Pepper. He had felt those feelings for her for a long time but he had always prem back rather than admitting it. It was true that he had done many things that he was proud of that others would rather forget. But her knew it would always come to this, that Pepper would realize who he really was the only question was when. So he had taken to haunting her life. Being her second shadow so to speak, he watched her as she slowly recovered from what had happened in the cave. He had seen her squealing and dancing around her room with her new phone. Gene had sent the phone to her remembering that Pepper had told him about her mother. Forging her mother's handwriting had been an easy task and Gene had easily shoplifted two phones. One for Pepper and one for him to keep and keep in contact. Keep in contact. Yeah, that was right. He had been messaging her, his phone was his only contact to her. His thin piece of yarn tying to Pepper and connecting to his old false life. He had been texting her, it had given him some comfort that he could still effect people's lives. He liked to think of himself as a puppeteer and Stark, Rhodey and most importantly Pepper, his puppets.

Over the passing days he had found comfort inside the bottle, in the drunk hazes after consuming too much of the deadly mix of rum, vodka and spirits he would awaken with a pounding headache strewn on the temple floor. Sometimes lying in a pool a vomit other times propped outside a doorstep but always with his cell phone in his hand and a bank of sent messages of threats and apologies his drunk addled fingers had texted and sent to Pepper. He had a special ledge on the opposite building to hers where he could see straight into her room. He spent most of his time there, transforming into the Mandarin and transporting himself there and watching for hours at a time. Gene never watched when Pepper was changing or anything else. Just thinking about it made Gene blush a ferocious red, but he did enjoy watching her sleep. Then she looked the most peaceful, the stress wrinkles on her forehead that were so often deeper then the smiling lines smoothed away. Her now frowning mouth curved into a satisfied half smile. It was when he was watching her sleep it was easiest imagining her forgiving him.

Gene's mind staggered slightly and as he came out of his bow. The beatific smile of the Buddha now seemed to be making fun of Gene. He felt the anger mount inside him. The pressure slowly building up, the anger making his ears ring loudly he grabbed around for a bottle and bringing it up he heard a roar as he smashed the glass against the Buddha's face. As he staggered backwards he looked at the chipped face of the Buddha one side of the face was completely chipped away while the other half was still recognizable. Collapsing to his knees his hand blindly groped around for the certain bottle that he knew was close. His hand clenched slightly at the bottle neck as he tilted the liquid into his mouth. The strong flavored liquid ran through his throat slipping down his chin. As the bottle emptied Gene felt. the buzz starting and before he could judge his actions he felt his body making its own independent movement. As he stepped out into the morning sunlight that was shining palely in the snowy morning, he carefully slipped on his rings. For a moment Gene hovered between his normal clothes and the metal suit. When he had totally transformed his mind focused on the special ledge as he disappeared in a swirl of color and light, only the good half of the Buddha was witness to his disappearance.

On the ledge Gene slipped the rings off his hand and transformed back to his normal self. He lifted his gaze slightly to the window and nearly jumped out of skin in surprise to see Pepper was already up. His eyes strained to make out the details but the ledge was a good viewpoint and he could easily make out her face resting against the window. She was staring down at the road, obviously unaware of another watcher spying at her. Gene absent mindedly swept off the falling snow and he became memorized with the red headed girl staring out her window. This was the most painful bit, Gene thought as his throat clenched. Knowing that he could never be inside with Pepper but always on the outside looking in. He brushed away the snow that disguised the single cool tear making its tracks on his face. As he looked he saw Pepper's face disappear from view. Gene felt his head hurting despite the alcohol effects. He put his hand into his head as the thrumming increased, he felt his hand slip into his pocket and pull out the mobile phone. His fingers punched in the number he had memorized. As he heard the ringtone it suddenly stopped and his breath caught as he heard the dial tone stop. His mouth seemed to move as he watched through the window he could see Pepper in the room and saw her turn and instantaneous pale white. His heart beat increased as he watched her as she dropped his present. The change that had happened in the month struck him and he started to laugh his pained laugh as he hung up. He could not make himself look up into the window and instead his almost hysterical laugh slowly turned to a cry of anger and sorrow. The high of the alcohol finally caught up with Gene and as he stood up he flung the black mobile phone off the rooftop he watched it fall and shatter, he wondered if taking his own life would hurt.

**A/N Meh, this was slightly OOC oh well, the next chapter will be up in a week or so. Thank you to everyone who read and/or reviewed, tell me if you like this or not. I tried to make it as convincing as possible but hmmm. I'm not sure if I like this or not. I like the fact that Gene really liked Pepper and it always seemed to me that he was doing it to for a deeper reason than power. **

**Update: So I have removed the third chapter from this story because it didn't really suit and it kind of (really sucked). I may write a final conclution but if I don't this is it- Thank you to everyone who have read this- maybe keep an eye out for another story.**

** THANKS!  
**


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